Heart of the World (42 page)

The light was fading. Sometimes with the fading light came faint music, too persistent to come from the radios of passing cars. In her imagination, there were strolling musicians, like the mariachi bands she'd seen in Bogota. She regretted the lost opportunity to play with the band in the square. Did the accordion boy wonder where she'd gone; did he miss the beat? She thought about the strange songs, the melodies she'd never learned, the beats she could have played, and sometimes it seemed that she heard them, either in the distance or in the depths of herself, in her bones. The blindfold was terrible, the gag disgusting, but if they wanted to torture her, earplugs would have been worse. To never hear music was unthinkable pain.

Her arms were bound to the wooden chair, but her hands were free to tap a beat. She never got too loud for fear they might hear her, but sometimes she got carried away. When she could hear the whole band in her head, it made the time pass, the unbearable time, with what, what at the end of time? What if this was the end of time? What if she would wake, but not wake, every morning in this chair and sleep, but not sleep, every night in this chair? What if this was hell, this hot smelly room? What if the devil had come back from hell?

She tapped the arm of the chair and wondered what they were waiting for, who they were waiting for. Was the “he” who might or might not show up her father? Was she there, tethered like a goat in a folk tale, tied to a tree to lure Roldan, the lion, to his death? Would her father come for her? Why should he? What was she to him? What was he to her? How can you be the child of a man you've never met? If she looked in his eyes would she see her own reflection? If he looked in her eyes would he see his future?

The limping man was waiting for gold. The idea of gold made her grieve her little statue. If she'd remembered Julio, maybe everything would have turned out differently. She stopped herself quickly, because “if” was the forbidden game. There were too many ifs. If she'd done this differently, if she'd done that differently. If she hadn't gotten into the white van…

Her hand beat on the arm of the chair, drowning the ifs in the beat. Drowning them, drowning them, blocking the thoughts, so she had no idea how long she'd been drumming or how long she'd been conscious of the music.

It was closer than usual. Louder, then louder still. Moving closer? An accordion, a guitar, a thumpety-thump bass. She wove a beat around the strum of the guitar, a secondary syncopated beat, and felt disappointed when they ended the song, then shocked into silence, frozen, as she recognized the whistled fragment.

What was it? Could it—

It sounded again, not a part of the music that had gone before, a whistled phrase, a familiar melody, a key that turned a lock in her memory. Where was it, the little Plexiglas music box Carlotta had given her as a child? Where had she put it? She tried to pucker her lips, to echo the plaintive musical phrase, and she was seven years old, playing hide-and-seek, crouched underneath the stairs. What was that music doing
here
, here in hell?

She wriggled her left wrist frantically. Maybe it was looser, maybe not. She stretched her spine, wriggled and bent, attacking the ropes that bound her left arm to the chair with her teeth, working as though her life depended on it.

CHAPTER 39

Edgy
. Too adrenaline-wracked to stand still, I
kicked a pebble across the narrow street. It skittered into the alley while I filled my lungs with humid night air.

Would she hear?

It didn't occur to me that she might not remember. It was whether or not she'd hear that worried me, snatching my breath so the final notes wavered eerily, like a music box winding down. I whistled the phrase again; I couldn't risk more than three repetitions. As far as Roldan knew, Ana had spent little time in the States. The song was obscure; probably most U.S. natives couldn't identify it, but for all I knew one of Paolina's captors was a blues freak. It was a risk I'd decided to take. To have the best chance to escape unharmed, she needed to be prepared, to know rescue was imminent, to stay alert and keep her head down. The song comforted me. If she heard it, she'd know I was near. Hope might give her a jolt of needed energy.

I waited a beat after the third repetition, signaling the strolling band to silence, but there was no audible response. What had I expected? That she'd burst out of the second-floor window like Superman? I sketched a farewell to the accordion player and stepped quickly around the corner. The musicians moved on, laughing and joking. They were part of the scenery here. For a price, they'd return on cue.

I waited eight minutes, then walked briskly through the service alley to the rear door of the apartment house next door to the target building, and rapped on the door, two loud, two soft. In the tiny vestibule, I handed the waiting Felicia my straw hat. She nodded and gave a thumbs-up. I ascended the steps to the third floor.

The code there was the same, two and two, but softer because we didn't want the tenants of the second-floor flat calling the cops to discuss the strange noises in the vacant apartment above. Rafael opened the door, wearing a paint-splattered jumpsuit and a white painter's hat. Roldan was there, too, also in painter's garb, his eyes glittering like a pirate's.

“Sam and Luis?” I said. “They're here? They're ready?”

“No.”

“They called?”

“No.”

“How long can we wait?”

“We don't wait.”

“What's going on?” Too late, I made the connections: Roldan, more than eager for Sam to impersonate him; Roldan giving Sam and me our moment of privacy in the depths of the fort, while he snatched a few private words with Luis.

“Only the slightest of variations,
chica
. Only what had to be done. This man of yours will not rescue my child. He is not her father. I am her father and the task is mine.”

“Where is he?
What did you do?”

“The play is the same, but the cast of characters will be different. Luis will keep your man occupied for a little while, that is all. He will come to no harm.”

“Rafael?” I stared at the hook-nosed man as I spoke his name. He worked for Ignacio and Ignacio supposedly worked for Sam. Luis, as well. But if the watcher at the fort could be so easily bought, why not Luis? Why not Rafael and Luis? Why not anyone?

Rafael shrugged. So much for his allegiance.

“Plato o plomo?”
I said.

“Si.”
Rafael smiled.

Roldan had been quiet while we'd pored over the blueprints, quiet
while we'd made the rescue plans, too quiet when the leading roles had been given to Rafael and me. Rafael and I were both slim and light, climbers by build.

“It's still a two-man job,” I said to Roldan. “You and me.”

I'd been concerned that Sam wouldn't want me to go. Overprotec-tive Sam would insist that one of Ignacio's hired guns should take the risk, or insist that he, himself, take the risk instead of me. Dammit, I should have been worried about Roldan.

“This time I have made the choice for you. Rafael will accompany me,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“I will have him tie you up.”

“Roldan,” I said. “Please.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Please? You surprise me again,
gringa.I
thought you would threaten.”

“I'll get down on my knees and beg, if that's what you want. Please. This is what I came to Colombia to do. This is what I
can
do. Paolina will have the best chance with the two of us, with those who care for her most. Please. One of us will protect her if anything goes wrong. One to fight. One to protect.
Please.”

He hesitated, compressing his lips before loosening them to speak. “I will be the one to fight.”

“Yes.” I would have said anything, agreed to anything. “We're wasting time. There isn't time to argue.”

“This is a choice you make with your heart?”

“Yes.
Please.”

“I will not have your blood on my hands.”

“Same here, Roldan. No blood. We go in, we get her, we leave.”

I counted heartbeats till he gave a curt nod.

The pinpoints of light in his eyes made me nervous. He might look like a pirate, but his years on the mountain had made him unpredictable. I was afraid he'd freeze when I needed him most, stop and mutter strange prayers or depend on mystical divination. Rafael and I had practiced together. Rafael was competent.

“Don't worry,” Roldan said. “I, too, have practiced. I know what must be done.”

We went through the apartment to the back bedroom, the small
room facing the alley, the duplicate of the room where Paolina was held captive. I went directly to the window and studied it with the same care I'd given its exterior earlier via binoculars. The glass was old and specked with dirt. When I lifted the iron hook that fastened the casement, both sides of the window swung inward on oiled hinges. Slowly I leaned out into the grated windowbox. The extension of the window proper jutted out from the wall of the house, eighteen, possibly twenty inches.

“I tested it,” Roldan said. “It will hold.”

“The balconies might not.” Rafael and I had been chosen, among other reasons, because we were lightest.

“Then we will fall,” Roldan said.

I hoped he'd spare me the one about how he'd die tonight if tonight was his time to die. I patted the fanny pack I'd borrowed from Felicia. Inside, a knob of putty, a glass cutter, a strip of celluloid, a can of spray lubricant, the Beretta from the mountaintop. If Sam had been there to back me, I'd have pulled the gun on Roldan.

The hook-and-eye was nothing; a simple strip of celluloid would disengage it. It wasn't designed to withstand robbers; the stout wooden grating on the windowbox supposedly eliminated that hazard. The win-dowbox was like a cage, but the cage, while strong, was vulnerable from above.

Roldan stripped off his jumpsuit. Underneath, he wore black; I wore black as well.

“You're wearing the vest?” he said.

I nodded. Earlier I'd voted against the Kevlar; it seemed to me we had surprise or we had nothing. I was tempted to shed the vest here and now. Any weight was a killer in this heat.

“And you?”

“Take this and chew,” he said.

The memory of the stamina and clarity the drug had granted me on the mountain defeated any purist scruples. If I'd thought of it earlier, I'd have requested the coca. Even the army provides drugs to keep pilots awake during long flights. Anything for an edge.

I followed Roldan through the apartment to the front of the building where Rafael stood guard near the open door to the balcony. I inspected the lock while Roldan and Rafael synchronized watches and set
cell phones to vibrate. The walkie-talkie batteries had already been checked and pronounced good.

Eyes glittering, Roldan placed a hand on my shoulder. “Take this for luck.”

I knew it by touch: the gold birdman.

“Whatever happens, return it to her.”

He passed through the balcony door as he spoke, effectively ending any conversation since the balcony was so tiny only one of us could fit at a time. The spindly ladder was sharply angled; insufficient room for good footing. The vine-covered grating made the space feel even more claustrophobic. I waited while Roldan's bare feet disappeared up the rungs. It was possible his grim smile was his reaction to tension, possible that this man who considered revolution a fiesta was simply rejoicing in the prospect of danger, but his demeanor made me wary.

A cloud hid the sliver of moon. I waited for its faint light to return before advancing from the first to the second rung. At the top, Roldan extended a hand to help me over the narrow cresting that rimmed the roof. Between us, we hauled the ladder up and carried it across to the roof of the next building. It was an easy journey, even with the ladder; no gap between the two flat roofs. Too easy, I thought.

Dangling the ladder over the cresting and planting its cloth-swaddled feet onto the balcony of the third-floor apartment below made up for it. My hands were damp with sweat. If the ladder slipped, it was over. If we made too much noise, it was over.

“We come from above,” Roldan whispered, “like the helicopter.”

Descending first, I went to work on the lock. The turncoat at the farmhouse had sworn the third floor was empty, a buffer zone, an armory where no one slept. Soon, I'd find out if he'd lied.

I was having trouble seeing the lock. Ignacio had come up with two pairs of old Nighthawk goggles, but they were heavy, and awkward; I'd voted against them. Roldan aimed the beam of a tiny flashlight at the doorjamb.

The hard thing about locks is time. As I crouched on the third-floor balcony, not quite in full view of the street due to the crosshatched grating, the plants, and the vines, it stood still. I loided one lock. The next one resisted; my fingers ached for the familiar steel of my own picks. Finally, giving up on subtlety, I sliced a circle in the door with the cutter
and laid a fold of cloth across it, the same cloth we'd used to swaddle the legs of the ladder. Then I tapped Roldan's shoulder and raised a fist to my mouth. He lifted his cell phone, punched numbers, hung up. We waited three long minutes for the hired musicians to return.

The landlady's first name was Dolores, and I could hear them call to her, laughing and strumming. They began the serenade with a mournful love song, and I gave the circle a sharp light punch. Shards of glass tinkled to the ground like thunder.

Sticking my shielded hand through the hole, I flipped the reluctant lever. I sprayed the track of the sliding door with lubricant. Roldan eased it open. The musicians played.

The memory of the creaky floors in the apartment next door held me momentarily motionless. I raised a hand and pointed at my chest to indicate that I'd go first. I was lighter than Roldan; he was to follow in my footsteps. I edged over to the left-hand wall: creaky floors creak less if you stick closely to the wall.